My art practice focuses on documenting microhistories of ordinary people, and I am currently investigating how the artist book can contribute to oral history in a meaningful way. Currently, I am working on two books that focus on the life stories of two different individuals: Kevin and Esta. My methodology is influenced by that of Italian microhistorian, Carlo Ginzburg, who suggests that a historian should observe, identify, and interpret details that are commonly thought of as ‘irrelevant’.

The written components presented in the books are biographical texts narrated in the first person. Through my studio research into the artist book, I am trying to represent implicit details that could easily get lost in the process of transcribing an oral story into text. Some of these include; emotions, gestures, tone, rhythm and the different types of silence that Kevin and Esta had shown during our conversations. By paying attention to those features, I aim to be able to translate meaning and intention from the oral expression to the printed word. In this paper, I will describe my process of recording microhistories and explain how I have been able to employ properties and devices associated with ‘the book’ to achieve this.